Tracking events and trends in Israel, the U.S., Russia and throughout the Epicenter (the Middle East & North Africa)

BREAKING: Obama refuses to back Egypt in fight against Radical Islam. ISIS burns 45 people to death in Iraq. MSNBC’s Chris Matthew says U.S. being “morally humiliated” by ISIS. New report highlights ISIS persecution of Christians.

UPDATED: The satanic acts of the Islamic State — robbing, killing and destroying across the Middle East and North Africa — continue unabated.

Yet President Obama and his administration are hesitating if not outright refusing to back Egypt — a long-time American ally — in its military strikes on ISIS, even thought 21 Egyptian Christians were beheaded this week by ISIS-affiliated jihadists in Libya.

Now even some members of the liberal media are becoming apoplectic by the lack of seriousness and urgency of the White House to deal with the evil that is ISIS.

“Jihadist militants from Islamic State (IS) have burned to death 45 people in the western Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi, the local police chief says,” reports the BBC. “Exactly who these people were and why they were killed is not clear, but Col Qasim al-Obeidi said he believed some were members of the security forces.”

“IS fighters captured much of the town, near Ain al-Asad air base, last week,” noted the BBC. “Col Obeidi said a compound that houses the families of security personnel and local officials was now under attack. He pleaded for help from the government and the international community. The fighting and poor communications in the area make it difficult to confirm such reports. Earlier this month, IS published a video showing militants burning alive a Jordanian air force pilot, whose plane crashed in Syria in December.”

“The Obama administration was given multiple chances Wednesday to endorse a long-time ally’s airstrikes on America’s biggest enemy at the moment, the so-called Islamic State,” reports The Daily Beast. “Over and over again, Obama’s aides declined to back Egypt’s military operation against ISIS. It’s another sign of the growing strain between the United States and Egypt, once one of its closest friends in the Middle East.”

It is hard to be surprised by the President’s dangerous and foolish foreign policy blunders, but this one is mind-boggling. We need the President to reengage and strengthen the U.S. alliance with Egypt that has crumbled over the past six years.

“Can we do nothing?” the MSNBC host asked. ”Can we just look at the pictures, ask what’s for supper? What’s on TV tonight? What’s the weather like tomorrow morning? And go on with our lives warding off the knowledge that these people are being killed in demonstration against us?”

“I know, we all know we need a plan,” Matthews continued. “We need a route that takes us to a destroyed ISIS, because the alternative is too sick, too un-American, too un-human. We can’t see people killed like this in our face and simply flip to the sports page or the financial news or what’s at the movies or who’s going to win the Oscars and act like America, our country, is not being morally humiliated.”

“Because it is, with the lives of at least some of these people, who must, in their last minutes, have to be wondering if there’s any chance the people in the United States could be coming to their rescue,” he said. “Because that’s how we were taught that we conduct ourselves. We don’t leave people behind.”

Fascinating new report by Rep. Frank Wolf and a team that went into Iraq to interview Christians and others persecuted by ISIS. Nina Shea distills the report into an excellent article. Also this: “Foreign fighters continue to stream into Iraq and Syria in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, Nick Rasmussen, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center attested yesterday at a House Homeland Security hearing. Committee chairman Representative Michael McCaul (R., Texas) called the influx ‘the largest convergence of Islamist terrorists in world history.’ At least 20,000 foreigners from 90 different countries have flocked there so far.” Please read and share.